As capital rotates out of previous intangible-dominated growth sectors and into hard assets like metals, energy, defense, and industrial infrastructure, tech investors are questioning where their next wave of returns will come from. Simultaneously, geopolitics is reshaping global trade, labor markets, and supply chains—further complicating traditional investment theses.
Yet within this broad capital rotation dynamic a significant technical event bucks the trend: the rise of agentic AI—autonomous systems capable of reasoning, task execution, and adaptation without continuous human prompting.
When paired with global capital shifts and tangible constraints, agentic AI represents a potent lever for strategic edge through superior cost control, risk management, productivity growth, and revenue acquisition. Those who recognize this convergence are already repositioning their capital allocation.
Capital Rotation: What It Means for Tech
For over a decade, intangible assets—software, data, networks—were the main value drivers in public and private markets. That dominance is now eroding and as discussed in previous newsletters, capital is now rotating toward:
- Tangible, supply-constrained assets like gold, silver, copper, oil, defense systems, and grid infrastructure.
- Cash-generative, geopolitically relevant sectors tied to national resilience (e.g., energy security, industrial logistics).
- Inflation-resistant business models with pricing power, real-world exposure, and physical moats.
This is not the death of technology investing, but it does call for a shift in focus. The axis of value creation is shifting—from digital-only SaaS models to AI-powered automation of complex, real-world workflows.
Enter Agentic AI: The Next Tech Megatrend
Agentic AI is a class of technology solutions that can autonomously plan, decide, and act across complex, multi-stage operational processes with minimal human input. Unlike traditional machine learning tools, which operate under tight supervision and narrow scopes, agentic AI creates the potential for:
- Workflow independence – Solutions that execute entire business processes from start to finish.
- Goal orientation – Solutions that identify optimal processes for business-defined objectives such as cost reduction, risk mitigation, customer acquisition, and revenue or margin augmentation.
- Adaptability – Solutions that learn from context and adjust their actions dynamically in live operational environments.
This is a giant leap beyond traditional chatbots. Agentic AI at its fullest is industrial-grade automation for knowledge work, capable of replacing or augmenting entire departments at far lower cost.
The implications?
- Massive cost deflation potential in white-collar-heavy industries (finance, legal, logistics).
- Enhanced reliability of business processes, especially those exposed to human error.
- Increased scalability with flatter organizations and fewer intermediaries.
- Higher accuracy and auditability of decisions via model-generated documentation, thus reducing risk.
Where Agentic AI Meets the Tangible Economy
The big potential impacts lie in applying agentic AI to physical-world bottlenecks—especially where legacy systems and labor constraints still dominate. Some examples include:
- AI + Energy & Utilities
Agentic systems can more accurately forecast load demand, optimize power routing, and even autonomously execute trades in energy markets. Several firms are already pioneering this edge. - AI + Manufacturing & Supply Chains
Companies are leveraging AI agents to autonomously manage production lines, robotic coordination, and warehouse logistics. - AI + Industrial Services
Field service platforms are embedding AI agents that coordinate maintenance schedules, assign technicians, track inventory, and report in real time—all without human schedulers. - AI + Compliance, Audit, and Legal
Highly regulated industries like finance and insurance are testing agentic systems for fraud detection, claims processing, and even regulatory audit preparation. Startups in this category are seeing strong enterprise adoption pipelines. - AI + Infrastructure Deployment
Agentic planning systems can now autonomously design fiber rollouts, optimize transportation routes, or even generate and revise BIM (Building Information Modeling) plans, accelerating everything from telecom to urban planning.
Strategic Investment Themes: 2025 and Beyond
Capitalizing on agentic AI in this new era requires rethinking traditional portfolio construction. Key opportunity areas include:
- AI-Native Infrastructure and Compute Scarcity
Agentic systems require massive, continuous compute. GPU scarcity, edge inference capacity, and latency optimization are now bottlenecks. Companies building decentralized compute, smart model routing, and energy-efficient chips offer long-term upside. - Workflow-as-a-Service Platforms
Expect a new generation of SaaS businesses to look more like autonomous process firms than toolkits. Platforms that combine proprietary datasets and vertical integration with industry-specific agentic logic, or enterprise deployments of major LLM provideragents will eat into consulting, operations, and system integrator budgets. - AI-Powered Tangible Asset Operators
Industrial firms embedding AI agents into their operations, such as mining, shipping, and agriculture, will expand margins and asset efficiency. These are not software companies per se, but AI-powered operators that outperform traditional peers. Think of it as “AI-alpha” for hard assets. - Security, Governance, and Agent Auditing
Agentic systems introduce new trust models. Cybersecurity firms that enable agent observability, intent verification, and decision tracking will dominate. The rise of AI governance as a service will also spawn many vertical offerings. - Emerging Markets & Sovereign Tech
As global powers race to secure autonomy in compute, data, and labor-saving tech, agentic AI becomes a sovereign asset class. Countries with aging populations or volatile labor markets will likely accelerate adoption and may even subsidize integration.
Where are the Opportunities?
To position for this evolution, capital will:
- Favor hybrid businesses that merge AI capability with operational depth in tangible sectors.
- De-emphasize historical valuations tied to traditional SaaS metrics and emphasize unit economics, workflow optimization, risk reduction, process reliability, and revenue or margin augmentation potential.
- Invest in moats around deployment, not just model training – i.e., firms with vertical integration, data access, and agent governance baked in. In the short term, momentum itself will be a powerful moat for early entrants.
- Monitor capital flows from governments and sovereign funds, which are increasingly the marginal buyer in dual-use and infrastructure AI.
Final Takeaway: Technology Isn’t Retreating—It’s Going Deeper
The rotation from intangible to tangible assets isn’t a tech winter, but it is a tech refocusing—from Cloud adoption and abstract software growth to embedded, infrastructure-oriented impact. Agentic AI is the vector through which this transformation is taking place.
The winners will be those companies, industries, and workflows where agentic AI quietly, efficiently, and permanently changes the game.
About Moneta
Moneta is a boutique investment banking firm that specializes in advising growth stage companies through transformational changes including major transactions such as mergers and acquisitions, private placements, public offerings, obtaining debt, structure optimization, and other capital markets and divestiture / liquidity events. Additionally, and on a selective basis, we support pre-cash-flow companies to fulfill their project finance needs.
We are proud to be a female-founded and led Canadian firm. Our head office is located in Vancouver, and we have presence in Calgary, Edmonton, and Toronto, as well as representation in Europe and the Middle East. Our partners bring decades of experience across a wide variety of sectors which enables us to deliver exceptional results for our clients in realizing their capital markets and strategic goals. Our partners are supported by a team of some of Canada’s most qualified associates, analysts, and admin personnel.